The last of the Arab conquests of early Islam in Iran is known as the Fatah al-Futuh
or the Battle of Nahavand.
Following the Sassanid Yazdgerd’s escape from Ctesiphon to the interior of Iran
and the gathering and joining of the armies of the central regions with him, aiming
of equipping a large army to fight the Tazyans, Ammar Yasir (the Emir of Kufa)
wrote a letter to the second caliph about the large number of the non-Arab armies
and aroused his determination to confront the non-Arabs.
During a consultation with Imam Ali (a,s) in the company of some companions,
they asked his opinion on how to confront the armies of Kasra and their participation
in this formation.
In response, the Imam(a,s) forbade him from doing so, saying that if he did so, “the
people of Sham from their Sham and the people of Yemen from their Yemen” would
be attacked and encroached upon.
Although most translators have translated the two combinations “from their Sham”
and “from their Yemen” in the same familiar and more widely known geographical
sense, this article argues that, based on biblical literature and historical linguistic
data, in addition to intratextual evidence, the meaning of Sham and Yemen in the
phrase “Ali (a.s.)” is the two geographical directions of north and south